A flight touched down in the western Chinese city of Xi'an last week, loaded with Thai shrimp. The flight was notable as it’s the latest sign that China’s more far-flung regional cities are becoming more accessible to imported seafood.
Xi’an was recently added to the list of “green channel” cities allowed to handle customs for international trade. Last week, almost 200kg of vannemei shrimp was carried on the Shenzhen Air flight, a scheduled route between Xi’an and Bangkok, a favorite destination for China’s swelling ranks of outbound tourists.
Previously, seafood had to be imported through a handful of ports and airports. That has changed as China opens up smaller cities, which are eager to get the taxes that come from handling inbound trade. Flying perishable goods inland makes sense given China’s still-patchy cold-chain logistics network. And the rise of Chinese tourism means there’s an increasingly wide network of air routes servicing provincial cities.
